2013 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain

O’Shaughnessy Estate is the project of Minnesotan Betty O’Shaughnessy, who prior to her Napa Valley adventure had a career in real estate investment and development followed by a stint as owner and teacher of a cooking school in Minneapolis. After falling for Napa Valley she purchased a parcel of land in Oakville in 1990, where she built a home, then bought additional vineyards over the next decade on Howell Mountain (beginning in 1996) and Mount Veeder (in 2000).

I tasted the full line-up of the Howell Mountain Cabernet at O’Shaughnessy’s home on the Oakville Crossroad, where she lives with her second husband Paul Woolls, a lawyer also from the Midwest whom she originally met at a wine tasting in southern California. Her house is surrounded by 32 acres of vineyards and is also the site of her second hobby: a greenhouse in which she raises prize-winning orchids.

Betty O'Shaughnessy and her husband Paul Woolls, along with winemaker Sean Capiaux and viticulturist Alan Peirson, run one of the hidden jewels of Napa Valley. All of the wines in this lineup are recommended. The Chardonnay emerges from a vineyard in Oakville, while the Cabernets draw from sites on Mt. Veeder and Howell Mountain, where the winery is located. The Merlot is a great choice for nearer term drinking, while the Napa Valley Cabernet is one of the very best wines readers will find in its price range. Sean Capiaux makes the wines in a pretty contemporary style, with a good deal of extraction and fruit intensity that balances the mountain tannins that are inherent in these pristine hillside sites.